MILWAUKEE – The Wisconsin Republican Party and the city of Milwaukee agreed to distribute to polling places a list of 5,512 prospective voters whose addresses are questionable.

The GOP had sought to question the validity of thousands of other voters.

Under Sunday's agreement, people on the list who seek to vote will be asked to fill out a change of address card or registration form, and to show proof of residency.

Anyone who does not have proof of residency at an address on the list will have to take an oath, and that person's ballot will be marked as being challenged. Those ballots will be counted, but another decision on whether they count could be made if there is a recount, Deputy City Attorney Linda Burke said Monday.

The GOP had filed a petition last week questioning addresses of 5,619 registered voters and seeking to have their names removed from the voting list, but the city Election Commission refused.

The Republicans then came up with a new list of more than 37,000 questionable addresses Saturday and demanded that the city require those voters to produce identification before allowing them to cast ballots.

City Attorney Grant Langley called that request outrageous, and said a check of the original list of 5,619 registrations had found "hundreds and hundreds and hundreds" of legitimate addresses.

Wisconsin Elections Board executive director Kevin Kennedy said that in many cases addresses appear to be questionable because of data entry error.

Wisconsin Republican Party chairman Rick Graber said the Sunday agreement will offer another layer of protection to assure that fraudulently cast votes will not be counted. Graber did not immediately return a call Monday seeking comment on why the GOP gave up on the list of more than 37,000 names.

Langley said city elections officials believed the list of 5,512 is something they can handle. "With this agreement, it really allows our poll workers to deal with this list," he said.

A spokesman for the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said the Democrats had not yet had a chance to see Sunday's agreement.

"Our bottom line is that everyone who is qualified to vote in the state of Wisconsin should be able to do so without harassment," spokesman George Twigg said.